Does it make sense to cash out with a 13% YTD taxable account based on the fact that historically the HBPP seldom yields over 13%. I am happy with 13% but I would pay a huge tax if I cashed out. I am retired and in the PP for the long run so I would have to buy back in Jan 2017. This means I would ...

People don’t need to feel as though they need to choose between belief in God and holding to scientific truths. There is a better alternative: studying the ever-increasing scientific evidence with an open mind to the very real possibility of God’s existence. https://cccdiscover.com/5-reasons-why-sc...

Good example. AND, you also need to start out when the funds are fresh or split to make them more even. Doing this strategy now with DUST at $5 and NUGT at $154, well, they are already severely unbalanced. Due to the nature of these instruments, this should not matter as long as you buy equivalent ...

Hasn't kbg already shown that for trending non/inversely correlated assets, the decay actually works in your favor? I'd be most worried when all PP assets are in a sideways market. The problem is that these correlations are not consistent and positive correlations between assets can last for extend...

Also keep in mind that a falling 3x leveraged instrument will approach zero rather quickly so if the underlying asset rebounds, you will not participate in proportionate gains. Quick example: If the underlying asset price is 100 and it falls 30% to 70 then rises 50% to 105. The 3x ETF is 100 and it ...

Similar to the last C.S. Lewis quote above, my Pastor said yesterday in his Sermon titled Team God, you are either on Team God/Team Jesus (believers in the promises) or on Team Satan (everyone else). He preached a great sermon on how our current culture tries to say everyone is OK, we are all the s...

What about the value of buying put options for your own stock, bond and gold funds, termed a year out? It's not uncommon in PP to have one stinker and two productive assets each year, with cash always being roughly flat. I haven't looked at an option table for years, but do the numbers for buying p...

To the big dismay of my mother, who literally thought my children were damned and were going to grow horns and be terrible people if I did not baptize them (I did not and they are fine). She's learned to live with it as she's gotten older. I also grew up Catholic and parted ways with religion long ...

Forgive my random question, but you are an anomaly to me. In my life, I've had very little exposure to people with true unwavering devotion to faith. If you present enough scenarios, it's usually simple to find the one that breaks the camel's back. You are lucky that what you believe in so unconditi...

Mountaineer,

Sorry if this seems like it's coming out of left field, and perhaps you've addressed it somewhere in this thread, but can you conceive of any event occurring in your life or another's that would change your faith?

- If you are forced to buy the stock at $80 you could immediately begin selling covered calls to generate income while trying to get out of the stock. I did this a few weeks ago with GILD... All that said, can anyone think of another downside to the strategy that I'm missing, other than the time co...

Hey everyone, Just curious if any of you have used options to manage risk and increase income inside your PP. Since cash is earning 0% right now it looks like selling puts on stocks you wouldn't mind owning could generate a reasonable return of 5-10% per year. That's my first idea, anyone else doin...

Apparently you have discovered a market anomaly: a profitable opportunity that no one is seizing. In that case, you should have no trouble with the following plan, which will in fact be greatly aided by your gender. Just open your own competing law firm, hiring women only, and pay them 90% as much ...

If it were really true that women were underpaid relative to their overall job performance, then any entrepreneur who wanted to make outsized profits (is there any other type?) would hire women preferentially. It wouldn't take everyone in society, or even the majority, just a few people to notice t...

Great points, guys. I admit I forgot about the LTT + Cash = ITT duration match but with incremental benefits in different economic scenarios. Also, consider your max drawdown tolerance. Some people are more inclined than others to do unwise things once portfolio values fall a certain amount. It's h...

I personally do not subscribe to the need for an emergency fund as I am employed and have very marketable skills that make me as confident as anybody that in case I lost my job, I would not be unemployed for long. I also do not have a family and have no dependents, and am healthy with good health i...

In my brokerage's paper trading account, going net long approximately $245-250k each asset has a projected overnight initial margin of $43k.

30% DD would be $225k + $43k margin = $268k equity required. That's around 2.75x leverage. Mighty impressive.

Hehe... Against every fiber in my body I went ahead and exchanged TLT for EDV/Cash in an IRA today. I'm sure I paid a premium, but maintained the 5.6 year duration. The IRA was 100% LTT's and I wanted to balance with stocks and/or gold at a later time. EDV is so monstrously volatile, hope you can h...

The comparison of the 60/40 returns to the 25x4 PP indeed isn't fair, because the owner of the 60/40 needs to hold cash. How much isn't clear, but most would recommend a sizeable enough chunk that it's a significant fraction of the stock/bond portfolio. Similarly, the 60/40 owner has to decide when...

Thanks for that explanation. I had to read it twice but it's very clear. Maybe I'm still totally off here but bear with me if you don't mind. If you hold nothing but futures contracts in your account, you don't own anything but cash and the rights to the cash gain or losses associated with the futur...

Interesting ...I executed the above in my broker's paper trading account and it only used 3,850 in margin. 1000 of that is for the equity portion and 2850 is for the futures portion. I'm going to continue this paper trading experiment, but with only 3850 used in margin and an estimated trading cost...

Stock dividends don't become qualified by length of holding period. That status is determined by IRS rules relating to the source of the dividend. I was just referring to the specific Apple example. Their dividends qualify or at least they have up to this point. For an individual investor you need ...

The main point of rebalancing is to maintain a consistent risk profile. Agreed, wide bands leave you with potential exposure to a very unbalanced risk profile during an extreme market event. Not sure I'd feel comfortable holding onto a 38/12/38/12 portfolio just because a backtest tells me doing so...

http://s19.postimg.org/4o3yqz1mb/screenshot_2016_07_10_at_05_04_32.png These calculations don't make sense to me. A corp is taxed on profits whether they retain it or pay it out in dividends so the 35% federal + 8.84% CA tax are going to happen no matter what. As long as you hold the Apple stock fo...

I think in the short term long bonds are over-extended. On a Keltner Channel chart, they are tagging the 3 standard deviation line to the upside on a daily chart. I expect TLO or TLT to come down by 4%. Intermediate to long term, who knows? This is why I completely gave up on market timing. Risk/re...